Gold vs. Kim

Robeye said:

Random Thought of the Day:

"Kim" means "gold" in Korean, so if the mods were really strict about this being an English-language board, the title of this thread should be: "Gold vs. Gold" .

Or a more expansive version might be: Who's Gonna Win Gold, Gold or Gold? And Bank All That Gold After?

Click to expand...

nice tidbit, a worthy successor then imo

gsk8 said:

We are looking into this. No posts have been deleted or removed. The server was experiencing difficulties earlier today.

Click to expand...

So it wasn't just me! I tried to post something during a break, and our office computers were so slow today that I thought we had swallowed it.

I had wanted to point out that in the last few decades, there has been an interesting variety of "peak" ages for skaters. Some seem to find their top skills very early on, such as Michelle, YuNa, and Mao. Some peak quickly and decline a bit, such as Kimmie, whereas others maintain their peak through many seasons. Still others don't seem to have it at an early age, but they keep growing and become impressive in their twenties. Shizuka Arakawa, Carolina, and Akiko are wonderful examples of this. So Gracie may be on a different inner timetable from someone like Mao or YuNa. The only way we'll know is if or when we see it happen.

kwanatic said:

However, I think Gracie is light years behind Yu-Na, Mao, Carolina, Akiko, Ashley, Kanako...Adelina, Zijun, Kaetlyn, Liza T, Elena Radionova and a number of other competitors when it comes to things like artistry, musical connection, performance and presentation. She's improving (very slowly) but she's still really behind the curve. Technically she's at the top...artistically she's at the bottom.

Click to expand...

I find this an overstatement. Gracie is light years behind Liza and Kanako? Neither of whom are particularly noted for their artistry (except for Kanako's SP this year) . . . I just don't think Gracie is nearly as bad artistically as you seem to think, or that some of the other girls are really that much better.

For example, I just watched Gracie's and Adelina's recent exhibitions at THE ICE. I thought Gracie was really quite good--she caught the mood of that Chicago music really well IMO. It was fun to watch, enjoyable. Adelina's piece was just okay. The yellow flags I found distracting, the skating (what there was of it) unexceptional. I re-watched their WTT SPs and really had pretty much the same reaction.

Although Adelina has pretty lines and nice stretch at times, there's a lack of personality to her skating, I feel like she has yet to really find her artistic "voice." (Also I think she's too bent over at the waist.) None of Adelina's programs has made me feel anything as yet. Gracie, I think, is actually closer to finding her own personality on the ice--she has a sense of the kind of skater she is and what music shows that--she just needs to express it more fluidly, deeply.

To compare Gracie to Miki doesn't really work, IMO. Miki had some basic fundamental flaws to her skating. She's always had really rounded shoulders, just a lack of stretch and proper position in her upper body. You used to see her upper body visibly pumping up and down during basic crossovers, which is just bad. I don't see any flaw as fundamental as that in Gracie's basic skating. She doesn't have nearly as much ground to make up, artistically, as Miki did. (And look how far Miki went!)

At any rate, I don't mean this to be a Gracie vs. Adelina or Gracie vs. Miki post, but am simply saying that I think Gracie's artistic weaknesses are overblown. In truth, when you compare any of the younger girls to a program like Mao's Smile/What a Wonderful World (also from THE ICE), well, there simply is no comparison. None of the younger girls show anything like the playfulness, the joy, the lovely soft knee action and whimsical expressiveness Mao shows in this number. It's just the difference between youth and maturity. But I disagree that Gracie is light years behind her similar-age peers.

eyria said:

At any rate, I don't mean this to be a Gracie vs. Adelina or Gracie vs. Miki post, but am simply saying that I think Gracie's artistic weaknesses are overblown. In truth, when you compare any of the younger girls to a program like Mao's Smile/What a Wonderful World (also from THE ICE), well, there simply is no comparison. None of the younger girls show anything like the playfulness, the joy, the lovely soft knee action and whimsical expressiveness Mao shows in this number. It's just the difference between youth and maturity. But I disagree that Gracie is light years behind her similar-age peers.

Click to expand...

I suppose everyone has their own opinion, and for me Adelina is way ahead of Gracie on presentation. I don't think Gracie is not artistic, but rather her choreographer is not giving her material to showcase that aspect of her skating. You can't just skate to beautiful music and be artistic, as we saw from Mirai last year. There needs to be a connection between the movement and the music where the skater's moves accent the peaks and valleys of the piece. Sasha and Michelle were masters of this, and I feel like Adelina and Kaetlyn are getting there.

The forum is still doing odd things: Not publishing posts; having pages where all the post on that page do not show etc.

Not only that posts from yesterday afternoon to early evening are gone.

Robeye said:

Random Thought of the Day:

"Kim" means "gold" in Korean, so if the mods were really strict about this being an English-language board, the title of this thread should be: "Gold vs. Gold" .

Or a more expansive version might be: Who's Gonna Win Gold, Gold or Gold? And Bank All That Gold After?

Click to expand...

To further expound on that with some funny trivia from Chinese skating forums

Kim = 金 in Chinese (Korean and Japanese formal too)

The nick name for Gracie Gold on Chinese skating forums is actually 美金 = American Kim

So I guess they see her as one of her successors in terms of her jumping ability that reminded them of Yuna.

I personally think Gold is being unfairly maligned for her 'artistry' which are basic but doesn't mean it is non existent, but that is to be expected because she is young and it is something one can develop with better art direction, life experience and mentorship. I thought she has good grasp of musicality, better than Ando, but perhaps she can learn to take art history lessons (not for the content, but how to deconstruct why artist do what artist do, and how and why sort of analysis which will really help her choice of expressions and presentation. She lacks in exposition and degrees of sensitivity in expressions.)

Personally I have always felt true artistry is not through innately born or imitations with but something one can develop and evolve through more life experience, emotional maturity, sensitivity and even through their own failures or life's sufferings The intellectual and the emotional maturity is what defines art, the concept, the process, not just the product. Gold has decent foundation with the right tools (born and breed) and the resources just need the right team to work that American athleticism superiority, she can be VERY good next few years. I think it might do her good to travel outside US for a while, stop listening to her hype (yes there will be pressures) read more, see more art/music/literature, to develop some wisdom by adopt to be more independent, see and brave the wider world outside the rink for a while, if she does, I am certain we will see a superior Gold on the horizon.

os168 said:

To further expound on that with some funny trivia from Chinese skating forums

Kim = 金 in Chinese (Korean and Japanese formal too)

The nick name for Gracie Gold on Chinese skating forums is actually 美金 = American Kim

So I guess they see her as one of her successors in terms of her jumping ability that reminded them of Yuna.

I personally think Gold is being unfairly maligned for her 'artistry' which are basic but doesn't mean it is non existent, but that is to be expected because she is young and it is something one can develop with better art direction, life experience and mentorship. I thought she has good grasp of musicality, better than Ando, but perhaps she can learn to take art history lessons (not for the content, but how to deconstruct why artist do what artist do, and how and why sort of analysis which will really help her choice of expressions and presentation. She lacks in exposition and degrees of sensitivity in expressions.)

Personally I have always felt true artistry is not through innately born or imitations with but something one can develop and evolve through more life experience, emotional maturity, sensitivity and even through their own failures or life's sufferings The intellectual and the emotional maturity is what defines art, the concept, the process, not just the product. Gold has decent foundation with the right tools (born and breed) and the resources just need the right team to work that American athleticism superiority, she can be VERY good next few years. I think it might do her good to travel outside US for a while, stop listening to her hype (yes there will be pressures) read more, see more art/music/literature, to develop some wisdom by adopt to be more independent, see and brave the wider world outside the rink for a while, if she does, I am certain we will see a superior Gold on the horizon.

Click to expand...

actually, 美金 except for American Gold/Kim, in Chinese, this nickname also means beautiful (graceful) gold A.K.A Gracie Gold.
I agree that artistry can evolve through life experience etc. But musicality is mostly innate, either you have it or not. Gracie however, does seems listen to music once in a while in her program, and one can see some sparkling moments but not all the way through.

yyyskate said:

actually, 美金 except for American Gold/Kim, in Chinese, this nickname also means beautiful (graceful) gold A.K.A Gracie Gold.
I agree that artistry can evolve through life experience etc. But musicality is mostly innate, either you have it or not. Gracie however, does seems listen to music once in a while in her program, and one can see some sparkling moments but not all the way through.

Click to expand...

How cool! I never realized how easily both of Gracie's names would "travel" from language to language. and it is kind of nifty that her surname has the same meaning as YuNa's.

As for musicality being innate, I tend to feel the same. But one never knows whether someone might have an as-yet-untapped capacity for it. So there's an element of mystery (and of possibility) to everyone when it comes to musicality. Maybe there are people who just haven't heard the right music yet.

os168 said:

The nick name for Gracie Gold on Chinese skating forums is actually 美金 = American Kim

Click to expand...

yyyskate said:

actually, 美金 except for American Gold/Kim, in Chinese, this nickname also means beautiful (graceful) gold A.K.A Gracie Gold.
I agree that artistry can evolve through life experience etc. But musicality is mostly innate, either you have it or not. Gracie however, does seems listen to music once in a while in her program, and one can see some sparkling moments but not all the way through.

Click to expand...

When taken literally it does mean American Gold, but 美金 has taken to mean U.S. Dollars.

So it's a play on words in multiple ways.

os168 said:

To further expound on that with some funny trivia from Chinese skating forums

Kim = 金 in Chinese (Korean and Japanese formal too)

The nick name for Gracie Gold on Chinese skating forums is actually 美金 = American Kim

So I guess they see her as one of her successors in terms of her jumping ability that reminded them of Yuna.

Click to expand...

Yes, thank you, os, for the more precise clarification , which is that Chinese characters are traditionally used in China, Korea, and Japan for formal naming, and the character "金", which reads "Kim" in Korean ("Kin" in Japanese, "Jin" in Chinese), means "gold".

Although my knowledge of Chinese is pretty much on a hearsay basis, and about as rude and crude as you can get, here is my speculation based on a few scraps of knowledge and some guesswork:

My understanding is that the late Qing Imperial court (China) dubbed America "Mee Guo" or "beautiful country", to flatter Americans into good humor. I believe that is how the Chinese character "Mee" (美) became synonymous with "America", in addition to its traditional meanings of "beautiful" or "graceful".

Thus, "美金" (Mee Kim) can mean a lot of things at the same time, including, as you say, "American Kim", as well as, literally, "Grace Gold". I would not be at all surprised if this double nuance was intentional.

This is a really good example, it seems to me, of the ability of Chinese ideographs to convey multi-faceted subtlety of meanings in a very compressed package.

(I'm hoping that Chinese speakers don't immediately deride my theory as full of poo ).

I always thought that the mei in mei-guo was just an abbreviated transliteration of a-MEI-ri-ca.

Mathman said:

I always thought that the mei in mei-guo was just an abbreviated transliteration of a-MEI-ri-ca.

Click to expand...

I was taught (in a class on Chinese history in college, I think, but it was a while ago) that it wasn't as prosaic as a phonetic transliteration. Because of the ideographic nature of the Chinese written language, the Chinese were used to the idea that the name, even a foreign name, has (or should have) inherent meaning, and is not just a bunch of random sounds. My understanding is that there were many possible ideographic choices that could have been used to represent the phonetic sounds involved. The "mei" of "beautiful", however, was decided upon by court officials, as both polite and diplomatic (just as England was rendered using the character for "heroic" and likewise positive characters were utilized for France and Germany). It was a deliberate choice.

Here is some supporting commentary that I dug up on a very quick basis: http://www.chinaembassy.bg/eng/dtxw/t131518.htm

"China and the United States have started contacts maybe 230 years ago. But Chinese people give each foreign country a Chinese name. But, you know, Chinese is not an alphabetic language, so the names actually often are very poetic. Now, for America, the Chinese started off with 100-odd different Chinese names. But after some choice, they came down to one name and it means -- it's two syllables. To someone who's just starting off studying Chinese, you'll discover it means "beautiful country." A grade-school student in China, when they're studying about America in a geography class, will very naturally have a positive feeling about a country with a name like that, because they'll assume this must be the most beautiful country if it has a name like that."

Hope that clarifies things.

I give up long ago try to work out how they come up with the names and the simple truth is there is no rule and everything goes. Political correctness out of the window. I think with these sort of new frontier mismash mixture of tribal culture meet sport fan culture meet language/culture barriers create all sort of interesting hyper culture. It is probably very much upon the communities personalities to come up with something that others will eventually adhere to. In a way, the nick name stuck for all sort of reasons, like how nicknames came about at High schools. I am sure similar things are experienced in non English fan forums like in Japanese or Russian fan forums. I came about my interpretation from how the the Chinese figure skating fans continues to marvel at Gracie's marvelous jumps that many had said reminded them of Yuna (not dissimilar to here I guess). Gold has been described as the Captain of Cheer leader squad type of skater (Her interpretation of Sleeping beauty left some sleepless) with Wagner sort of like the Prom Queen skater (Carries favour from head principle?). They make powerful contrasts and head girl representation types for the US Squad for Sochi.

yyyskate said:

actually, 美金 except for American Gold/Kim, in Chinese, this nickname also means beautiful (graceful) gold A.K.A Gracie Gold.

Click to expand...

Yes that is definitely one way to interpreted. The Beautiful Gold.

aftertherain said:

When taken literally it does mean American Gold, but 美金 has taken to mean U.S. Dollars.

So it's a play on words in multiple ways.

Click to expand...

Ha love this, never thought of it. Her nick can be Money or Megabucks because of her money jumps.

Robeye said:

Yes, thank you, os, for the more precise clarification , which is that Chinese characters are traditionally used in China, Korea, and Japan for formal naming, and the character "金", which reads "Kim" in Korean ("Kin" in Japanese, "Jin" in Chinese), means "gold".
...
Thus, "美金" (Mee Kim) can mean a lot of things at the same time, including, as you say, "American Kim", as well as, literally, "Grace Gold". I would not be at all surprised if this double nuance was intentional.

This is a really good example, it seems to me, of the ability of Chinese ideographs to convey multi-faceted subtlety of meanings in a very compressed package.

Click to expand...

Yeah Chinese characters are adapted by Japan and Korean for formal writing and are used in names and can have many meanings. They are always adapted to something meaningful and purposeful, that is why you'd rare find the exact adaptation Japanese skaters in their formal characters, and same with other nationalities regardless of their original name. To literally translate them will be meaningless. Usually Chinese fans comes up with a derivative of that names based on how they feel and regard the skater that matches the intonation and similar pronunciation of the original format.

For example Mao Asada's surname 浅田 can be literally translated as 'Shallow Field ' which is really meaningless when you interpret that way. And it can't be like the 'Mao' like Chairman 'Mao Ze dong', nevertheless they sometimes fondly call her Chairman Mao, or Cat 猫, for she is definitely feline, nimble and often cute like a cat.

Mathman said:

I always thought that the mei in mei-guo was just an abbreviated transliteration of a-MEI-ri-ca.

Click to expand...

You can be right, and England because of the ENG shares the same meaning and sound as the 'Handsome' nation. But when GB decide to call themselves 'Great Britain' (sounds pompous and arrogant when you think about it), it is sometimes translated as 'Big Upside Down' 大不列顛 on the Chinese navel maps lol.... which I figured was a nice subtle dig at the self proclaimed great nation. 不列顛 shares similar intonation to B-ri-tain. Although diplomatically you can interpret the geographic seems upside down, since the Great bit is at the bottom, who knows. Maybe someone can come up with a better answer.

I found this summary of all nick names for those who cares about their favorite skaters/coaches among the Chinese fan forums, it is quite comprehensive list and telling about the skaters personalities and reputation in China. One of Morozov's nick 色莫 can be translated as Pervrozov for example.

http://tieba.baidu.com/mo/q-0--wapp...375618021924_789/m?kz=2160449823&lp=6000&pn=0

I love for example Katelyn Osmond's nick is simply KO (knock out)
Kiira Korpi's is simply = Kbeauty
Carolina Kostner = SisterTurkey (derived from one of her earlier costumes reminded them of Turkey.)
Akiko Suzuki = SisterGoldfish (Guess to do with her facial feature and her beautiful skating?)
Alissa Cziney = Fairy or Makes you mad (气死你 shares similar intonation to her surname)
Yuzuru Hanyu = Happy Ox (hard working, and 哈牛 shares similar intonation to his surname)
Michelle Kwan = Empress Kwan
Evgeni Plushenko = Emperor Pu
Yuna = Queen
Sasha Cohen = Princess sit floor
Adam Rippon = Touch face (one of his earlier programs he touch his face too many times), Sugar/Sweet heart, Curly Hair.
Javier Fernandez = Little Pirate
Alena LEONOVA = SisterLenovo (After the Chinese electronic giant Lenovo - Chinese brand name: imagine)
Julia Lipnitskaia = Little Slutskya or software card (being very soft and bendy among other things)

Kurt Browning = Uncle Baldy 光头叔

Daisuke Takahashi = Daddy Bridge 桥爷, his surname means bridge in Chinese, and 爷 is a sign of respect similar to
Alexi Yagudin = Daddy Bear 熊爷

(Edited to add extra explanation for Olympia)

(Falling about on the floor gasping)

My absolute favorites: Princess sit floor and Makes you mad.

The world is smaller than we think.

Thanks so much, os168. Alternately humorous and beautiful, depending on the name. I love the name "cat" for Mao and agree that like a cat, she often seems boneless, with no angles. Look how a cat sits compared to a dog: a curving line from head to the tip of the tail. By comparison, I think of YuNa as embodying another kind of grace: like a gazelle or a greyhound, all streamlined speed and buoyancy, seemingly having more "leap" than her muscles would allow. I love that YuNa is "Queen." And Kiira Korpi as Kbeauty...eminently suitable, and Adam Rippon as Sugar Heart!

Because the U.S. is a multi-ethnic country, our names come from many languages, but each of them also has a meaning. Experts on names say that there are several categories of surnames: patronymics (identifying a father, ancestor, or clan, like Johnson), location (some geographic feature, such as Hill or the German Rosenberg, rose mountain), occupation (Baker or Bouvier, which is the French for cowherd), or attribute (some description of a quality). Of course, those are passed down through generations, but first names are given by parents because of their sound or family association or a hope that the child will have that attribute. They might or might not end up reflecting the nature of the person in the end. That's why it's lovely to see that some cultures, including Chinese, give the opportunity to create suitable nicknames. I wish we did that more in English, though we do do it sometimes. (For example, baseball player Hank Aaron was known as "the Hammer" because of his powerful bat.)

Hey, I just realized: where's our wonderful Daisuke Takahashi on that list?

^ You mean High-Bridge Big-Help?

os168 said:

I give up long ago try to work out how they come up with the names and the simple truth is there is no rule and everything goes. Political correctness out of the window. I think with these sort of new frontier mismash mixture of tribal culture meet sport fan culture meet language/culture barriers create all sort of interesting hyper culture. It is probably very much upon the communities personalities to come up with something that others will eventually adhere to. In a way, the nick name stuck for all sort of reasons, like how nicknames came about at High schools. I am sure similar things are experienced in non English fan forums like in Japanese or Russian fan forums. I came about my interpretation from how the the Chinese figure skating continues to marvel at Gracie's marvelous jumps that many had said reminded them of Yuna (not dissimilar to here I guess). Gold has been described as the Captain of Cheer leader squad type of skater (Her Sleeping beauty left some sleepless) with Wagner sort of like the Prom Queen skater (Carries favour from head principle?). They make powerful contrasts and head girl representation types for the US Squad for Sochi.



Yes that is definitely one way to interpreted. The Beautiful Gold.



Ha love this, never thought of it. Her nick can be Money or Megabucks because of her money jumps.



Yeah Chinese characters are adapted by Japan and Korean for formal writing and are used in names and can have many meanings. They are always adapted to something meaningful and purposeful, that is why you'd rare find the exact adaptation Japanese skaters in their formal characters, and same with other nationalities regardless of their original name. To literally translate them will be meaningless. Usually Chinese fans comes up with a derivative of that names based on how they feel and regard the skater that matches the intonation and similar pronunciation of the original format.

For example Mao Asada's surname 浅田 can be literally translated as 'Shallow Field ' which is really meaningless when you interpret that way. And it can't be like the 'Mao' like Chairman 'Mao Ze dong', nevertheless they sometimes fondly call her Chairman Mao, or Cat 猫, for she is definitely feline, nimble and often cute like a cat.



You can be right, and England because of the ENG shares the same meaning and sound as the 'Handsome' nation. But when GB decide to call themselves 'Great Britain' (sounds pompous and arrogant when you think about it), it is sometimes translated as 'Big Upside Down' 大不列顛 on the Chinese navel maps lol.... which I figured was a nice subtle dig at the self proclaimed great nation. Although diplmatically you can interpret the geographic seems upside down, since the Great bit is at the bottom, who knows. Maybe someone can come up with a better answer.

I found this summary of all nick names for those who cares about their favorite skaters/coaches among the Chinese fan forums, it is quite comprehensive list and telling about the skaters personalities and reputation in China. One of Morozov's nick 色莫 can be translated as Pervrozov for example.

http://tieba.baidu.com/mo/q-0--wapp...375618021924_789/m?kz=2160449823&lp=6000&pn=0

I love for example Katelyn Osmond's nick is simply KO (knock out)
Kiira Korpi's is simply = Kbeauty
Carolina Kostner = SisterTurkey (derived from one of her earlier costumes reminded them of Turkey.)
Akiko Suzuki = SisterGoldfish (Guess to do with her facial feature and her beautiful skating?)
Alissa Cziney = Fairy or Makes you mad (气死你 shares similar intonation to her surname)
Yuzuru Hanyu = Happy Ox (hard working, and 哈牛 shares similar intonation to his surname)
Michelle Kwan = Empress Kwan
Evgeni Plushenko = Emperor Pu
Yuna = Queen
Sasha Cohen = Princess sit floor
Adam Rippon = Touch face (one of his earlier programs he touch his face too many times), Sugar heart, Curly Hair.
Javier Fernandez = Little Pirate

Click to expand...

Oh OS, you made me LOFL a few adds
Liza = ET (originated from her initials, also means her extraterrestrial unique beauty and jumping capability)
Yuna recently got a new nickname among her uber fans "salty swan" same intonation to her given name (although it should be 妍儿 in Chinese meaning beautiful girl). it is sorta self-depreciating way to name our beloved Yuna. Perhaps due to part of Chinese culture which values humility. We dont want to call her Queen all the time, it sounds presumptuous. and wish this nick name can bring her good luck in future competition.
Patrick Chan has many nick names, just to name a few “apron", "sir new direction", "butterfly skirt".... you dont want to dig into that
Among Yuzuru's uber fans, we would like to call him 羽生 (meaning feather born, which is also his japanese family name) instead of happy ox. because, Yuzu is very lyrical and light as a feather does not resemble an OX in any way.
And one of our Chinese future skating star Han Yan just recently got a very cute nick name from Kurt Browning. "Honey" I will post more regarding his nickname on his fanfest.
Chinese skating fans also like to call our beloved choreographers or coaches aunt or uncle. e.g aunt Lori, Uncle Brian Osier.
Oh sorry, a little too much about skaters' Chinese nicknames. But I will definitely recommend studying Chinese as a second language to any one, Chinese is very interesting !

Golds deficit in artistry is exaggerated, she isnt lightyears behind either, lol
I would rank the artistry by the new Girls

1 Adelina
2 Kanako
3 Gracie
4 Osmond
5 Julia
5 Zijun
6 Tuk

Ummm can we get back to skating here?